Congratulations to the 2017 PiE Scholarship Finalists and Winner!

Written by Vivien Nguyen on May 5, 2017

Every year, the PiE Alumni presents an award to a high school senior in recognition of their dedication to PiE’s goals of higher level education and outreach to the community. The following are the PiE 2017 Alumni Scholarship finalists for the $2000 award.

Ramon Verdin:

Ramon studies at El Cerrito High and plans to continue his education at UC Santa Barbara in Computer Science. He is a fantastic student and one of the hardest working individuals we have had the pleasure to have met. We were impressed by his contributions to his family and himself. He “exhibits a strong sense of self perseverance and determination. But what distinguishes Ramon from other students is his resiliency and hunger to pursue a higher education.”

Allison Tamayo:

Allison is a student at Aspire Public Schools and is moving on to study Economics and Statistics at Boston University. She is a fantastic example of student leadership with her involvement in PiE and the Red Cross Club, which she founded at her high school. We admired her drive to independently search out skills to bring back to her PiE team as she did with Girls Who Code. She has “self identified her strengths in school to be a “love of learning” and “curiosity”” and we highly agree.

Elizabeth Storrs:

Elizabeth attends Albany High School and is going on to participate in the premed program at UC Santa Cruz. She has been involved with her PiE team for 4 years and “has been an invaluable asset to the team with her positive attitude and eagerness to strive for and accomplish the best they could”. She has wanted to pursue a medical degree after she participated in various classes and a medical program, and we were impressed by her clear goals and plan to achieve them.

Max Lee:

Max goes to Campalindo High School and is going to study Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. He has a long running involvement in with projects for a variety of groups and we admired his dedication to his work. He has been involved with the Lawrence Hall of Science for six years with the TechHive and other programs and is a stellar scholar. We’ve known him since his involvement in PiE on the LHS team as a middle school student and it’s been a pleasure to watch “him grow in his technical proficiency and public speaking, and continues to sustain his passion for design and engineering.”

Javier Fuentes:

Our PiE 2017 Alumni Scholarship winner is Javier, who attends Aspire Public School and will be studying life sciences at UC Davis. he is a fantastic student and we were impressed by his academic achievements despite the challenges he has faced. We appreciate his incredible sense of responsibility to his communities as a member and future role model. In his own words, “from my experiences, I learned just how important it is to learn and to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Had I decided to make things easy for myself and not dared to go out of my way to face the situation at hand, I probably would not have been able to learn as quickly as I did.”